_pater_ again set forth and launched a charred spear (the prehistoric weapon of hardened wood) into the territory of the offender, with words setting forth the menace of war.[1387] When the struggle was over it was he who struck the peace and the sacrificial victim with a flint-stone which symbolised the watchful Jupiter (_Jupiter lapis_).[1388] The sanctity of envoys, other than these priestly messengers, was as rigorously observed in the Italian as in the Greek world. A violent death on an embassy was a martyrdom deserving of immortality, and the ancient Rostra in the Comitium showed a group of statues erected to those who had met their fate in the cause of peace.[1389] The neutrality of ambassadors was exacted with equal care, and the disaster of the Allia might be looked on as a retribution for the impious precipitancy of the Fabii who, forgetting their sacred character, fought in the ranks of Clusium against the Celtic hordes.[1390] In the agreements made by generals and envoys with a foreign people, the idea, common to most primitive minds, that it is the oath which makes the promise binding is strikingly present. We have already touched on the vast constitutional import of this conception in its connexion with the question, posed but never completely answered by the too patriotic jurists: “Who could take the oath on behalf of the Roman people?” But the theory which on the whole prevailed, that it could not be taken by a general in the field, not only nullified the promise so made and rendered it a mere agreement (_sponsio_), valid between citizens but not between strangers, but exposed the rash swearer to the extremest penalties. With a strange inconsistency of judgment it was held that the oath, which was no oath, laid the guilt of perjury on the conscience of the people, unless the man who had caused the people unwittingly to sin was offered up as an atoning sacrifice. Naked and bound, like the sacrificial human victim of prehistoric times prepared for the altar, the _imperator_ was surrendered to the offended people. It is not surprising that the latter—whether Samnites, Spaniards, or Numidians[1391]—refused to take the worthless gift from the hands of the _pater patratus_, and preferred to continue the conflict with a people still convicted of sin. The individual oath to return, made by a prisoner of war released on parole, though binding on his soul alone and, as a religious obligation, not punishable by the civil arm, was enforced by the public conscience. One—others said more than one—of the Roman captives sent by Hannibal after Cannae to negotiate an exchange of prisoners declined to return on the negotiations falling through. The pretext was that they had revisited the camp of the conqueror _after_ the oath had been taken. Tradition varied as to the punishment imposed by Rome; some spoke of a summary arrest and enforced return to the Phoenician camp, others of a